Many electronic devices such as digital cameras, personal and laptop computer systems, personal digital assistants (PDA), televisions, and audio and/or video media players are configured to store information to and retrieve information from memory cards that are detachable from the devices. These memory cards offer users the ability to store and transfer information between various devices by storing information from one device onto a memory card and transferring the information from the memory card to another device. For example, a user may take pictures using a digital camera that stores the pictures on a memory card. The user may then couple the memory card to a computer system to transfer the pictures from the memory card to the computer system.
Memory cards, like all electronic devices, consume electrical power in operation. The amount of power consumed by a memory card may vary with an internal clock rate of the memory card. In other words, faster clock rates may generally cause more power to be consumed by the memory card than slower clock rates. Although faster clock rates may enhance the performance of the memory card by allowing it to transfer information to and from the host device at a faster rate, the host device may not need such enhanced performance at various times. At these times, relatively slower performance produced as a result of a relatively slower clock rate may be sufficient to meet the needs of the host device.
In addition, different types of host devices may place different performance requirements on a memory card. For example, one type of device that uses a particular memory card may require higher performance from the memory card than another type of device that uses the memory card.